


swear i was born right in the doorway

by portions_forfox



Category: Skins (UK)
Genre: F/M, Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 08:46:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portions_forfox/pseuds/portions_forfox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>karen grows up and gets mean. freddie grows up and gets angry. it's a sulky combination for a pair of lost little children, that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	swear i was born right in the doorway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [youremyqueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/youremyqueen/gifts).



> written for [youremyqueen](http://youremyqueen.livejournal.com)'s prompt at [lesoleilluna](http://lesoleilluna.livejournal.com)'s [skins ficathon](http://lesoleilluna.livejournal.com/46010.html) → freddie/karen, _you're finally golden, boy._

So there’s these images, right?—that are kind of like memories only they’re not memories because in the drunken mess of childhood no one’s got  _memories_ , really, real proper memories with timelines and punchlines and floodlines and the like (except maybe JJ but he doesn’t count, genius IQ and all. JJ can tell Freddie exactly the moment he met him, and more importantly he can tell him exactly the moment they met Cook, line for line like he’s recounting one of the long passages of poetry he memorizes to clear his head of the jumble that’s always kicking around up there, you know how JJ is but that’s a different story—). Everything to do with childhood is pictures, glimpses, white line wrinkles on the corners of pages and inky glare under floodlights, it’s—it’s about pictures.   
  
And anyway the first picture wasn’t JJ or Cook or—or Effy, really, no; and it wasn’t Mum either (there’s hardly any pictures of Mum at all, is the thing, that’s the—).   
  
The first was Karen—   
  
(and it goes like this: small hands, knob knees, eyelashes, black).   
  
  
-   
  
  
It’s six years old usually when the floodgates open up to spit out a rush of memories, fogged-up and graying but flecked with words, feelings, something like an old video reel with only a couple seconds taped on loop. Freddie’s never been able to tell if it’s six years for everyone, if six is the age you look back on and you start to shape these video reels you know, these semblances of memories, or if maybe that’s just him because his mum died then.   
  
(There are no pictures of his dad then except the stale stench of beer and the blue frames of light from the telly flickering against the wall, don’t mean anything, no face to bring to light—).   
  
Karen was ten. She still loved him very much, told him so every night and brushed his hair behind his ears like any mother who wasn’t sick would do. She showed him off to her friends, small fingernails tickling at the back of his ear and warm eyes (and he thinks he was a little bit in love with her, then,  _then_ , he means).   
  
He saw her silhouette in the doorway, crumpled at the shoulders and straightlined and small. The moment lasted longer than it should’ve. She crawled into bed beside him and the springs creaked, her uneven breathing staunch against Freddie’s ear, her warm little hands grasping for his torso, and she kissed him the way only sad little children can kiss, short and sweet and tear-stained.   
  
And for some reason, for some reason that makes no sense in the world except in Freddie’s mind somehow, the only thing he could think to say was: “You’ll be so  _pretty_ , Karen.”   
  
  
-   
  
  
Karen grows up and gets mean. Freddie grows up and gets angry.   
  
It’s a sulky combination for a pair of lost little children, that.   
  
  
-   
  
  
Daddy says: “Tell your sister she looks sexy.”   
  
And you won’t, and you won’t, and you won’t, and again: “Tell your sister she looks sexy, Freddie.”   
  
There’s this look on her face, and like you have to remember she’s gotten  _mean_  now is the thing, tan hands curled into tiny fists on her tiny waist, doe eyes narrowed into mean round spit, giant lacquered eyelashes fluttering hard against her cheeks, and you realize she doesn’t  _need_  this, she doesn’t  _need_  to know she’s sexy, she’s already learned that from everybody else. What she needs is to hear it from you.   
  
Later you let her hear it. You stand in the doorway of her room and she stares up at you, awake, probably waiting (if that’s not going too far, if besides all of this that’s not the thing that pushes it too far—). Your crawl into her bed and hover over her and your hands pull down at her  _stupid fucking pink pajama bottoms_  and you kiss down her stomach and bite her a little bit maybe and when you push inside her you push hard, and she moans, she moans because her little brother’s fucking her in her own goddamned bed.   
  
She was the first, you understand?


End file.
